Position Paper and Call to Action

Supporters

The following individuals and groups have signed on as supporters of our position paper. If you would like to sign as a support, please sign here. If you have questions or are interested in becoming a conscientious objector in regards to Common Core standardized tests, please contact us.

Thank you for writing this! It is a real shame what has become of our education system. As a teacher and parent, I am very frustrated by what is happening. I am not sure how much longer I can hang in the education field.

For years, the media has been sounding the drumbeat that education in America needed to be fixed, even though it didn’t. Many supporters of CCLS have bought into the idea that these standards could be used all by themselves, disconnected from the testing. But I don’t see that is the plan. The plan is a system that started with new standards, then testing, then teacher evaluation based on the testing. (And since not enough teachers were rated “ineffective”, NY Gov. Cuomo & NYS Regent Tisch have now started planning a new strategy to change the evaluations to fire more teachers.) Next, the testing must all be done online, which will accomplish corporations’ desire for data mining and the creation of a longitudinal data base that follows children from pre-K through their high school experience. At every step along the way, some corporation has a stake in the process: the testing industry, the technology industry, the consultants who sell teacher evaluation rubrics, data mining entrepreneurs, charter school chains. As educators are forced out of the profession, teaching will be demoted from a career to just a temporary job. I am extremely worried for my grandson and the children I see in school today. It all looks like they want to control the masses. If our children are taught in a way parents don’t understand ,our children will not rely us–loyalty shifts from the parents and grandparents to the school and they now have their future base. Most people do not see it. The end of public education will have ramifications beyond what we can imagine. And how is it even happening? The 10th Amendment states “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” By empowering the federal government to control public school curricula the Common Core program is also in direct violation of three federal statutes. The General Education Provisions Act, the Department of Education Organization Act, and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), ban the Department of Education from directing, supervising, or controlling elementary and secondary school curriculum, programs of instruction, and instructional materials. Common core violates all of the above. Where are the lawsuits? Sadly, this is not the America I grew up in.

Sarah Brewer – Norman, Oklahoma

Clyde Mann – Teacher, Mountain View, Fremont Unified School District

We need to be one voice, collectively speaking in a way that shows what true value, we as teachers bring to humanity.

The testing frenzy of the past decade has been especially hard on English language learners. It takes several years for second-language students to work their way to a level playing field with native-speaking students. This is a linguistic fact that was previously accepted but changed because of political pressure. Thousands upon thousands of ELL students have suffered. How many have lost enthusiasm for school? How many have dropped out? We need to return to research-based fairness when testing ELL students.

John Mannion – President, West Genesee Teachers’ Association, teacher, Syracuse, NY, West Genesee Central School District

To use the education of the children of this country as an emerging industry is immoral. To label the movement as education reform is reprehensible. To allow its negative impact to continue is irreversible.

Shauna Williams – Parent, New York, NY, Manhattan

Susanna Kaljur – Teacher, Courtenay BC, SD#71 Comox Valley

Mary Baine Campbell – Professor, Waltham, MA, Brandeis University

It is clear from the changes that have come over the student body I teach that testing has been not just a sickening waste of time but seriously counter-productive. I am impressed and heartened by every story I hear or read about teachers resisting in the schools. More power to you! The rest of us (not just college teachers like me but everyone in the country) depend, for everything, on what you are able to do.

Testing is not the answer. Students are not widgets. They are human beings, with feelings backgrounds and special needs. They cannot be standardized. Each one is unique. Let teachers teach. End the testing insanity!

Give us, instead of the national bullet list of puerile “standards” and the invalid, demotivating summative standardized tests a few general guidelines (a very broad framework–perhaps four or five principles), continually revisited and critiqued, that provide the degrees of freedom within which real curricular and pedagogical innovation can occur and open-source crowd sourcing of alternative, innovative ideas: Competing, voluntary standards, frameworks, learning progressions, curriculum outlines, reading lists, pedagogical approaches, lesson templates, etc., for particular domains, posted by scholars, researcher, curriculum developers, and teachers to an open national portal or wiki, and subjected to ongoing, vigorous, public debate and refinement based on results in the classroom and ongoing research and development, freely adopted by autonomous local schools and districts and subjected to continual critique by teacher-led schools–teachers who are given the time in their schedules to subject those, and their own practice, to ongoing critique via something like Japanese Lesson Study.

We are listening, reading, writing, and talking to friends, neighbors, and lawmakers about the real harm that we see taking place in our schools, with our children, and with our teachers. My husband and I, along with numerous friends and parents in Arizona, and elsewhere, stand with you and thank you for your courage in this monumental battle to preserve and resurrect real and meaningful education for our children. God bless our kids.

Teachers, parents and all members of our society, let’s join together to save public education. We should all be Of Conscience, should we not?

Chaya Rubenstein – Retired Teacher, Northfield, Illinois

Charlene Skelton – Teacher, Reno, Nevada, Wooster High School, Washoe County School District

Matthew Lessig – Associate Professor, Manlius, NY, SUNY Cortland

Fran Douglas – teacher (retired), Madison, CT

I was a 4/5th grade teacher for 17 years in a largely impoverished rural community of Vermont. I loved my job, my students, the community in which I lived and worked. I know I made a difference in the lives of my students and their families. I would have taught for many more years. A new first year principal ( a dutiful bureaucrat) who had never been a classroom teacher, an ardent supporter of Common Core Standards , decided I needed to be placed on a corrective action plan that would compel me to comply and conform to instructional practices I believed were not in the best interest of the students I taught. I was expected to abandon a rich, immersive, interdisciplinary literacy program that engaged, motivated and enriched my students lives. They loved reading and writing! But, autonomy was not valued. Reflective practices were not valued. Conversations about theories of learning and teaching were not valued. To prepare our students for the Common Core tests we teachers needed to be consistent in what and how we taught. Meaningful professional development opportunities were replaced with boring, uninspiring mandated district wide workshops such as KLT (Keep Learning on Track) a manual of instructional practices published by Educational Testing Services. It was demoralizing to be treated like an education technician. I could not participate in instructional practices that were profoundly out of alignment with my philosophy of teaching and what I know about how children learn. I’m certain my colleagues also struggled with this conflict, but silent acceptance, compliance and conformity prevailed at our school. I resigned before the end of the school year.

I retired last year after 26 years teaching in high poverty elementary schools. I came into the profession when I was considered a professional making a difference in the lives of my students and testing was seen as a diagnostic tool. I left being considered a failure because 100% of my students didn’t pass the state standardized tests. Students living in poverty and with trauma, English as a second language students, and those on an IEP struggled with the tests. Test prep took precedence over science and social studies, thinking, and developing a love of learning. I saw money from Race to the Top funding at my school being spent on things and people that were not sustainable. When we questioned decisions we were given poor evaluations. I was working 10 hour days and every Sunday and had no time for anything else. I left disillusioned, and angry. Then I read Diane Ravitch’s books and learned there was a struggle going on to keep public education public and felt I should have stayed to fight the good fight. The letter I have signed gives my unconditional support to those teachers who are still in the profession fighting and making a difference.

This kind of nonsense has been going on since “A Nation at Risk” raised its ugly head. The letter here says it better than I can. If the U. S. is to be saved, its public education must be saved and freed from the political ignorance which is killing it.

Sheila Resseger – retired teacher of the deaf, Cranston, RI, RI School for the Deaf

Thank you for this excellent summary of the total wrong-headedness and harmfulness of market-based education reform. Acts of conscience are what is needed to counteract the juggernaut of corporate influence on our children and a vital public institution.

Elsbeth Harkey – Teacher, New Orleans, LA

It’s time that we stand together for our children and let it be known that we will no longer tolerate the tyranny of a system that bases a child’s worth on their test scores. I stand with this movement.

“What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all its children. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon it destroys our democracy.”- John Dewey

Marian Cruz – Retired Teacher, Hollister

Cheryl Davis – teacher, Laurel, Maryland, Prince George’s County

Sharon Nimeh – retired teacher, now adjunct, Pittsford, Rochester City School District

As long as the priorities are wrong, the outcome will not produce successful students. By successful, we mean involved, committed, real-goal oriented, creative, critical thinkers who value the opportunities our democracy offers to them. As long as the bottom line is the bottom line (profit for business), and we swallow that, we will produce tripe.

Leslie Silliman-Hadra – teacher and parent, West Hartford, West Hartford Public Schools

As a teacher and parent of three, I am completely dismayed at how our educational system has been bought and is currently being systematically destroyed. I am completely frustrated at not being listened to as either a parent or a teacher! What is going on? I didn’t think we lived in a communist society . . .

I do consider myself an expert on academic standards, and they most clearly are not compatible with business standards. While the idea of standardizing as a nation sounds good on the surface, it most clearly is not, since not all students are, or learn, the same ways or at the same pace. As a nation who invests in education, and rightly so, we are on the wrong track. The education experts are not professors or businessmen, but classroom teachers.

Current reform efforts pushed by greedy Wall Street tycoons, greedy politicians, greedy hucksters, and greedy opportunists are about steaing from the poor to give to the rich. It was not one lick to do with improving education!

Lyn C. Grund – High School Librarian, New Brunswick, NJ, Middlesex Public Schools

Dan Drmacich -Retired Principal, Rochester, Rochester City School District

I support this position paper and recommendations 100%. It’s time for the olicy makers to wake up and examine the research and impact of these corporate policies on students & teachers.

My recently published book, Stubborn Hope: Memoir of an Urban Teacher, describes how No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top over several years sucked the humanity out of the educational climate at my school. I left because I could no longer agree to being a part of the child abuse that’s going on.

As a parent of a child about to start school and an educator myself, I am deeply concerned about a market-based testing culture that ignores every evidence-based principle of how children actually learn.

Renee Russo – Before & aftercare teacher at the Selden/Centereach Youth Association, Selden, NY, Middle Country Central School District

I am studying to become a teacher and have realized what my views are on common core testing. I very much support the views of The Teachers of Conscience. I can’t wait to see what the future holds within the education system!

I sign in support of our nation’s highly qualified education experts, and nurturers of our children’s love for education. I sign in opposition to corporate influence that puts these groups in danger’s way- danger that is imminent if allowed to proceed.

It saddens and angers me to see what is being done to our educational system, and the negative impact it is having on our children. I pray that parents, teachers, and administrators stand together and speak up to protect our children and their future.

Gloria Weiss – Teacher, New York, NY, Adult Education HSE

The same is happening for young adults and adults who are trying to get their high school equivalency diplomas in order to keep or get a job. NYS DOE’s choice of and roll out of the new TASC exam (Test Assessing Secondary Completion) has been just as poor as what has happened in grades K-12.

Christine Golden – Teacher and Parent, Rome, Utica City School District

In Alberta, Canada, as well, the provincial government is looking towards the extremely rich and powerful oil and gas industry to revamp and rewrite curriculum, etc… we also have standardized testing that is as you say dehumanizing and a complete distraction from beneficial education.

Miriam Vieni – Retired Social Worker, Westbury, NY

As a parent of grown children and a social worker, I believe that these standardized tests are educationally unsound.

Diane Aoki – Teacher, Kona, Hawaii, Kealakehe El., West Hawaii

Thank you for your courage. Someone has to lead the way and show the others how it’s done.

I am in full support of this movement. I have worked with young people for over twenty five years and have seen a steady, counter intuitive move away from what children, teachers, parents & communities most need for educating our young people. It is a tragically politically motivated turn and each year it seems to go toward the dismantling of a fair, equitable system of education in America. We are not teaching for social change or for environmental awareness and protection but rather we are lowering the standards on all we should be doing to educate for a more humane and sustainable world. The Common Core furthers this misguided direction.

I have a public school teacher for 18 years and at no other time in my career has the assault against public education been greater. Common Core needs to be rejected for the Trojan horse that it is–privatizing our schools for profit at the expense of our students. I stand in solidarity with all teachers, students, parents, and communities to eliminate Common Core and high-stakes testing! ORGANIZE!

Jo Anna Buckley – Parent, Salem, South Salem High

Teachers are trained to teach. Business are trained to make money. I vote for teachers being set free to do what they love, for the good of our children.

Jim Domenico – Parent, San Francisco, CA

Carol Penick – Teacher, Austin, TX, Travis High School, Austin ISD

Education and learning cannot be accurately measured by multiple choice questions. Standardized testing does not create a love for learning or prepare our children for life.

I truly believe that what is being done to our children is abuse – emotional and mental abuse. When our schools become “cost centers” and our teachers become slaves to educational reform perpetrated by those outside the field, it is the students who suffer. Bravo to those who are helping to create a wave of true reform, a tidal wave that will drown the Common Core and replace it with developmentally appropriate practices, designed by educators!

Brenda Torres – Parent, Bronx, NY, Ampark District 10

Our children need more time learning and less time testing. They should not feel intimidated by their school or its work. Billionaires are not the folks who are teaching my children, no test data should decide who they are or where they belong.

Teaching citizens to evaluate information and sources is a critical skill. The Common Core emphasizes thinking ability. The test, however, is too long and too focused on trivia. Evaluating teachers based on the test results is a CRIME. Who will teach the slow learners when their job is based on results?

Thank you for opposing common core and the billionaires. We have set up a website for those who want to oppose the Common Core takeover of the GED exam. Visit restoregedfairness.org to take a “quick version” of an actual common core test. I think you will be shocked at how bad these questions are. This nightmare exam should not be inflicted on any students.

Sarah Victor – Parent, Freeport, Maine, RSU5

I stand in solidarity with parents and teachers everywhere who are opting out of corporatized standardized testing.

Claudia Uccellani – Youth librarian and parent, Nyack, New York, Nyack School District

I applaud your commitment, efforts and courage!. It’s time that we all allow teachers to regain their role as professionals in the classroom.

It is disheartening to send the children my wife and I have cared for in the preschool years into an atmosphere of testing dominated schools. Please let the teachers, who are the professionals we have hired to educate our children, make the best decisions as to the growth and development of their students. How is it that we have lost faith in our cherished mentors of children and young adults? How is it that we have missed the profit motive of the testing industrial complex? How is it that we ignore the warnings of almost every study which dismisses the value placed on our obsession with testing. Let us instead increase our support of teachers and their classrooms through more funding, and reduce class sizes and bring back the arts and other important programs which have fallen by the wayside due to the starving of our educational system. Learning does not take place in a vacuum. If we remove the very classes which enrich students and help prepare them to better learn, and instead spend that money on more testing, then we are truly working against the welfare of the students.

No brainer! Problem with public education? Improve public education! Public education worked for me & it will work for every child in America. Wall Street wants to get its grubby hands on the billions of $ spent on public education every year. That, & only that, is the objective behind every one of the “alternative solutions” .

Stevi Carroll – Retired teacher, parent, grandparent, Pasadena

Sending support and strength. Hang tough and thank you so much. (Retired 25 year veteran teacher here.)

Jeanne Shaw – Grandparent, Denver, CO, Denver Public Schools

I have grandchildren that are suffering now under the Common Core. The tests I’ve seen are outrageous. My second grader has become frustrated and bored. This has to stop. We will lose a generation of children this way. I got a great education in Colorado schools. I want my grandchildren to have that same opportunity.

Rahel Warshaw-Dadon – Parent, Boulder

I definitely support more teaching and less testing. I also support more PLAY time and breaks for both the kids and the teachers.

I am in my third year of college, to become a teacher, and my 13th year as a school employee. I have seen nothing good come of common core.

Sarah Kain – Teacher, New York, NY Gramercy Arts High School

Janice Rael – Parent, Clayton, NJ, Clayton Public Schools

Standardized testing does not test skills or knowledge. My daughter spends all of her time cramming for the test, instead of learning how to actually do actual things. We are failing our children. Common Core has got to go!

The creep of commercialization into education is no longer a creep, it is a tidal wave. Do not be afraid of the future, embrace a world of roundly educated people living in the harmony which is our destiny as Humanity. Stop pandering to divisiveness and embrace the future of diversity and harmony.

Education should enrich the mind, soul and conscience. Nowhere is standardized testing a vital component of education. This is all about privatizing public education and psychologically subjugating our children. Time to OVERTHROW THE SYSTEM.

Anne E. Levin Garrison – Parent, Riva, MD, Anne Arundel County

Following the destruction from NCLB, and RTTT, the corporate-sponsored CCSS will finish our public schools off. Save our schools, our teachers, our children, our country, our future from the greed and wrong vision of corporate control.

YES, YES, YES! Many of us here on the west coast stand in solidarity with you as act with courage and integrity. The corporate and market driven must be stopped if we are to save education from becoming a tool of the corporate world, of the elite.

Adisa Zahir – Teacher, Bronx, NY

Stephanie Bryant – Parent, Jersey City, NJ

Anthony Cirillo – Lake Luzerne, NY, District: Hadley-Luzerne

I am signing this petition because I care about kids. They need a chance to enjoy the beauty and wonders of childhood.

I have been a passionate and dedicated educator for 32 years. This letter speaks to nearly every concern that I have regarding high stakes testing and Common Core standards. As a special education teacher, I worry about my students who are working so hard and making so much progress, but who will undoubtedly perform poorly on these tests. I applaud these brave New York teachers!

Thank goodness for strong, able, and caring teachers with the courage to stand up for our children and our nation!

Brian Ehmann – Teacher, Philadelphia, PA, Lowell, Philadelphia

Standard tests have nothing to do with teaching and education. In Pennsylvania, teachers don’t get the results from the PSSA test until after our students have moved on to another grade. We lost at least two weeks of instructional time and our students become anxiety filled.

FINALLY some brave teachers are understanding the important priorities. This could restore my belief in public schools.

Todd Blevins – Student, Morehead, KY, Morehead State University

Lee Davis – Retired Senior, Portland

I think with these Standardized Tests, Public schools are nothing more than outlets for Corporate Propaganda.

J. Michael Hudson – Performer, Teacher, St. Louis, MO, Parkway West

More testing, and this obsession with sorting children, is not a part of a solution to why the united states is turning into a failed state. It is simply the removal of curriculum that would make it obvious how illegitimate the entire american system is, which is to say, you can’t teach about reality in a corrupt system without teaching how to be a revolutionary. And in such times the forces of corruption will appear to do exactly what they have done over the last decade, replace curriculum with hoops to jump through, water down history books, remove current events from the syllabus. So this boycott of this and other aspects of the forced testing, and the separation of the wealthy kids from the poor kids, can expect nothing but resistance from me and my friends. And I am prepared for it to get ugly.

Market-based reforms and the proliferation of charter schools in California (we have the highest % of growth) are undermining the vision of public education and widening the achievement gap, no matter what test scores a few charters tout.

David Cunningham – Teacher and Parent, West Babylon

Kirsten Hassenfeld – Parent, member of School Leadership Team, New York, NY, P.S. 364 The Earth School, District 1

I am so proud of the faculty and staff at the Earth School for standing up to support and protect our children. Thank you for your tireless work inside the classroom and on your own time, working on projects like this one. my family has been so fortunate to have spent the past 6 years as a part of this community.

Carole Schiffman – Parent, Boynton Middle School, Ithaca, New York

Aside from test prep time, I am also concerned bout the time deducted from the 180 required days in order to administer the test — three days alone for the ELA — plus the time taken for grading the tests (in elementary school, teachers would grade while students had substitute teachers (not only chaotic and ineffective for the kids, but costly for the school.) And there is no thought given to the fact that these are not their only tests — my kids have barely had a week pass without a test or quiz or multiple tests in their subject classes, and Regents exams are also upon us.

Randi Halpern – Parent, New York, NY, The Earth School & East Side Community High School, District 1

Lynn Hall – Parent and Teacher Educator, Potsdam

We support you and thank you for being so brave! My students (future teachers) are very upset about corporate reform. My best and brightest students are reconsidering their choice of career. They can’t believe the torture that children are experiencing at the hands of these reformers. If more teachers, like you, can stand up to this madness, they will stay and be more brave to fight the good fight! Thank you for providing leadership at this significant moment in the movement.

I am so happy to find young teachers of conscience who have the integrity and the courage to stand and fight. So encouraging. Please contact me to ally with SOS and join our May 17th Rally: “Taking Back Our Schools” at City Hall Park. Diane Ravitch will Kick it off.

Elizabeth Elsass – Parent, Brooklyn, NY, PS 146, District 15

Thank you teachers for your courage to speak out. I am a mother of one of the 243 PS 146/Brooklyn New School children to opt out of the high-stakes tests this spring. This current evaluation system is broken. It must be stopped, evaluated by educators and child development experts (not business people testing new products), and made to serve the needs of all children. Human beings have multiple strengths and intelligences. The teacher/child relationship is sacred, and the high-stakes of the current tests undermine that relationship and actually hurt our children. We parents stand with you in support and will not give up until the high-stakes are removed and the tests themselves are a useful tool in assessing and aiding learning of all public school children.

Maureen – Teacher, Brooklyn, NY, PS17k, District 14

William Fong – Teacher, New York, NY, East Village Community School, District 1

Sarah Couper – Parent, Chester, NY, Monroe Woodbury

Shannon Smith – Teacher, Central Point, OR, Scenic Middle School

Margaret Crouch – Teacher, White Plains, Mt.Vernon Public Schools

I am in awe of your bravery and tenacity to fight a system that is wrong. Please let me know how I can bring this fight to my district, which is filled with administrators who insist we comply with the state edicts.

I agree with this letter and feel it should be sent to Commissioner Gist of Rhode Island. The CCSS and tests are also supposed to be implemented with and administered to the most severely disabled students. These students will never have a career or go to college but must be taught the CCSS. In reality, these students should be taught functional life skills so they can be as independent as they are able as adults. Too bad the lawmakers are making these decisions instead of the people who are trained to teach.

Erica – Teacher and Parent, New York, NY, The Earth School, District 1

Christopher DeGraaf – College Student, Raleigh, NC

I grew up as a fairly exceptional student in a standardized environment. While I could take advantage of the resources available to me (i.e. building relationships with teachers, going to them when I needed help, and learning better as a result), I saw around me too many of those who pushed the efforts of their teachers away. Still, those teachers continued to try. This is for all of them, and everyone like them.

I stand in solidarity with these teachers and their stance on the high stakes testing happening around the country. Testing and assessment is useful for teachers to know their students and to modify instruction. These tests do nothing for teachers and students. They are a waste of time and money.

This concise, well-written position paper reflects the thoughts and feelings of teachers in the trenches nation-wide. Thank you!

Carrie Wyder – Educator and Parent, Perry, NY

I am happy to know that there are teachers out there willing to stand up agains this mess we call Common Core. It is easy to feel alone, and sometimes people need a beacon. The three of you will, undoubtedly, be a beacon to many. THANK YOU.

I have watched my wonderful, innovative, child centered school deteriorate into a place where frustrated and demoralized teachers follow scripted programs in order to produce homogenized products in writing, math and science. This focus on product rather than educational process is even affecting the way our students approach the arts.

High-stakes testing distorts the teacher-learner relationship. It is unable to measure gains made by students who perform below grade-level (such as special education students) and should be stopped.

John Young – School Board Member, Newark, Delaware, Christina School District

PJ Motsiff – Teacher, Glens Falls, NY, Glens Falls City School

I am so proud of you! Last year we refused the test for our 3 children. This year I asked for a 6 month leave of absence from my district because I knew the educational movement was going to start to “roll”. I did not want to witness the abuse the tests had done last year to the children in my class. While watching what was coming out of the governors office and state ed., I was unwilling to do test prep and administer the exam for a second year in the form they wanted me to. Thanks for standing up and you should be grateful you have a supportive administration willing to fight the fight with you!

I fully support the ideas expressed in the position paper. I will stand up for my children’s educational rights.

John Lawhead – ATR teacher, Brooklyn, New York, District 21

I support the teachers at PS 364 who have decided to refuse any proctoring assignments for the state tests and are sharing their views about damaging effects of current educational policies. I urge my colleagues in New York City to do likewise. Let’s request alternative assignments! Let’s proctor and score tests only after being formally compelled to do so. Stop pretending that a meaningful education of the kind our students deserve can be based on such tests. We need to loudly warn parents, the public and the media that their trust in test-based accountability is sorely misplaced. Let’s use our knowledge as working educators to help extricate the schools from this disaster. We don’t need better tests or better test-based curriculum. We need educational policies that are deliberated and implemented in a democratic process. We can see already the detour away from democratic control leads to students as guinea pigs, teachers as script readers, and education as a commodity. Let’s resist!

I am a certified teacher working for a non-profit learning center sponsored by the Association of Washington School Principals. I am also a school board member. Washington State has been on the progressive side of the educational reforms sweeping our nation. Our new teacher and principal evaluation did not get entirely hijacked in the legislative process; we have also passed a state version of the Dream Act for undocumented students. Our Supreme Court through the McCleary Decision has mandated that the Washington State Legislature lives up to its Constitutional mandate to “amply” fund education by 2018. I believe most of what is happening to schools is not helping kids. Teachers help solve the problems of society; we don’t create them nor should not be blamed for them.

Michelle Schoeneman – Parent and Teacher, Buffalo, NY

Najia Stallworth – Teacher, Clarksville, District: KMS at CMCSS

I am incredibly proud of you all! They say we should choose our battles and this is definitely one worth fighting!!!!

Madison Bannon – Out-of-school time programming facilitator, Seattle, Washington, King County School District

I am currently in the “Absentee Teacher Reserve,” something I knew nothing about when in good conscience I spent a lot of effort and money obtaining my license and MS in Education, hoping to pass on my knowledge and skills to the next generation. I have been treated like a true professional by the powers that be; as an “ATR” I am required to attend one school per week as a glorified substitute. However, my dream is still to teach public school kids and shape their moral characters as well as provide them with the academic skills they will need in order to compete in this complex world. I am hopeful that the negative reaction to corporate style reforms will someday allow me to do that.

Rocco LaPenna – Actor, Hollywood, CA

These tests informed my parents that I was mentally disabled when I was a child. It totally damaged my self esteem. I was told I was never going to be able to go to college. Since then I have graduated NYU’s Stern School of Business and I received my Masters in Fine Arts at Harvard University and the Moscow Art Theatre. I run two business, I produce, I direct and I act. I happily refuse standardized testing.

Reece Foxen – Grandparent and educator, Cloverdale, CA

Thank you!

Rebecca Bliss – College Student, Thornwood, Westlake High School, Mt Pleasant School District

I am a teacher of conscience and I oppose the Common Core and its abusive testing program. I applaud NYS parents, teachers and students who boycott the 2014 tests, which are meaningless to educators and students. Our children deserve better.

Nicole Dixon – Teacher, New York, NY, East Side Community High School, District 1